"They
have come up with a series of recommendations for restructuring the global
economy, in response to the crisis that we're in the middle of, which are
really quite innovative," he says.

Rich vs. poor?

"The
rich countries like the United states, the European Union, Japan and so on are
really taking a stance that the global economy is pretty much ok…. We just need
to tweak it a little bit and have some mild reforms," he says.

Ambrose
says it's the wrong policy.

"Unless
they bring the developing world along, there's always going to be a drag on the
global economy. And there's going to be
a fundamental instability. This is one of the problems in having a single
currency as the global reserve currency…with having poor coordination of
regulations,' he says.

He
says unless there are major economic reforms, developing countries will remain
vulnerable.

"If
they take care of the problem now, we could go forward with a more balanced
economic system that would work for everyone…. If enough money is devoted to
trying to create a stimulus package for the southern (developing) countries…it
would benefit both north and south," he says.

G20 promises to help

In
April, G20 countries pledged over $1 trillion in financing at their London
summit. Much of the money is going to
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loans to poor countries to help them
deal with the crisis.

"It
was a start. The G20 did do one thing that we were very pleased with, which was
they talked about a new allocation of what's called Special Drawing Rights
through the IMF. This is the cheapest and the least cumbersome way for
countries to get money that they can use for whatever purpose they want. We think that there should be more Special
Drawing Rights," he says. SDR's is
basically a currency issued by the IMF with few conditions and low interest
rates.

However, Ambrose says, "Most of that
money is going to middle income countries. Five percent of it is going to the
most vulnerable, poorest economies."

ActionAid and other groups have been
critical of the IMF in the past, saying it has mismanaged financial crises in
the past.